T.D.

I think it [Death of Stalin] is coming to my sticks area soon!

I e-mailed the Mosaic info address. Both MC and Scott kindly and quickly (esp. considering they likely thought it a dumbass inquiry ) replied. There was only one copy of each Select (Tolliver, Rivers big bands), and they sold. I expected as much, so did not ask whether they were complete sets.

Thanks, guys. I'd be shocked if complete copies of those Selects survived four days of the open house sale, but I will inquire to Scott.

Thanks, John.

Damn. Rivers Orchestra and Tolliver Big Band are Selects I really want...but no way I could have made the trip.

I live in the hinterlands so can't speak to trends, but the two semi-local German restaurants I know of (Mid-Hudson Valley area NY) are doing very well. Granted, they rely heavily on craft beer sales and have made some menu updates (e.g. veg/vegan options). I agree that the traditional "stodgy" German restaurant is fading.

Thinking of picking this up, several years behind the curve as usual. Looking at the track listing, I see a lot of pieces with vocals. All other aspects look fantastic, but to date I've been less fond of Parker's work with vocals (admittedly small sample size, though). Should I go for it anyway?

I'm out in the hinterlands so can't speak to trends, but over the past 2-3 years the local (mid-Hudson Valley, NY) shops that deal in used CDs have greatly expanded the book side of their business and significantly shrunk the CD side. [Added] Same shops also sell vinyl, which seems to be faring much better than CDs.

Thanks for the info on Daedalus. I placed many internet orders with them, but none in the past 2-3 years. Thanks also for the tip on the Strozier. I ordered that plus 4 others (Thad Jones/Sonny Rollins, Oliver Lake, David Newman, Pettiford). Several other titles were interesting, but limited budget so I stopped at a few low-priced ones.

Daedalus/salebooks/salemusic seems to still be in business, but on a greatly reduced scale. As noted, jazz down to 6 titles. Classical down to 42, and the book selection is way down from when I used to shop there. Website was inoperative for an extended period recently. Future does not look promising.

Barry Harris Trio, "Bean and the Boys" from Magnificent!

Ahmed Abdullah - trumpet, flugelhorn Marion Brown - alto saxophone Billy Bang - violin Sirone - bass Fred Hopkins - bass Andrew Cyrille - drums

8/10, but with several guesses.

R.I.P. I'll say no more because many eloquent eulogies will appear in scientific and popular media.

I had to look it up upon reading this thread...

I always use the term "not to my taste." A bit reluctantly, since the phrase sounds prissy and pretentious. However, I'm not a trained musician and can't make accurate technical criticisms, so all my opinions ultimately wind up equivalent to "well, I like/dislike it".

I've gone both ways on the comfort zone issue. In classical music, I was for a long time a "new music enthusiast" and constantly listened to highly avant-garde/exploratory works. But I listen to much less of that now (for instance, I more or less concluded that orthodox Darmstadt-style serialism is not to my taste). I still look for new (to me) areas, though: Renaissance polyphony is a big recent interest. Relative newcomer to jazz (only in the past 15 years did I listen to much outside of Miles). Started out very much straight-ahead bop/hard-bop, but branched out quite a bit over time (Sun Ra is a recent interest) and have begun to find some hard-bop a little stale. I enjoy stuff that stretches boundaries with awareness of bop/hard-bop roots (e.g. the new Braxton Parker box is interesting, but too pricey so I will stick with the old 2 disc set). I'm still a little leery about far-"out" jazz, because some of the sound worlds explored (Bill Dixon for instance; no disrespect intended, just a matter of taste) remind me of the modern classical that I tired of. The way I became a jazz enthusiast early this millennium was funny...Bought my father a Proper box ("Bebop Spoken Here" iirc), listened and was intrigued by the Tadd Dameron tunes. Bought the Coltrane/Dameron "Mating Call" and kept going. I found almost infinite amounts of jazz that was new to me (didn't even know of Horace Silver or what "hard bop" meant at the time), and I overall enjoyed it much more than the avant classical I'd been listening to. I still explore enough so that current tastes are not carved in stone.